


Don Quixote's Final Adventure and Greatest Triumph

by Gfan97



Category: Don Quijote de la Mancha | Don Quixote - Miguel de Cervantes
Genre: Angst and Humor, Assumes you have read the book, Ending Fix, Gen, The Hero Dies, passing the torch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-26 19:40:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21993937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gfan97/pseuds/Gfan97
Summary: Don Quixote and Sancho Panza's adventures together are coming to an end. But first Don Quixote has one last trial he must face and foe he must vanquish!
Relationships: Sancho Panza & Don Quixote
Kudos: 6





	Don Quixote's Final Adventure and Greatest Triumph

**Author's Note:**

> To anyone who reads Don Quixote fan fiction, this is my first fic ever. I it wrote after reading the book for class. My main reason was frankly that I did not like that ending. It just felt kind of bleak to me. So I decided to write my own! Admittedly I hold a bit of the Romantic mindset compared to Cervantes but I hope I did it justice. Anyway, enjoy!

Don Quixote and Sancho Panza had arrived in Madrid. Despite Don Quixote’s near death from the fever, brief brush with sanity (he insisted it was actually madness), and the inept coroner who declared him dead having him buried alive, he had managed to alert the people in the cemetery to his survival and leapt from his coffin ready to spend his pastoral year preparing to vanquish the Knight of the Full Moon. After the year was up he and Sancho set off again, with Sancho’s wife Teresa and their children paid with the profits of his book about he and Quixote’s adventures. He of course never realized how much he actually had made and believed himself to still be poor. They had had numerous adventures since them including the utter defeat of the Knight of the Full Moon prior to arriving in this city. 

“Here Sancho, I shall face my ultimate enemy, and vanquish him once and for all in the name of my lady Dulcinea del Toboso!” said Quixote as he looked on the townsfolk hustling and bustling through the street.

“How do you know that?” asked Sancho, “because as my mother used to say, you never know who you’ll meet in the big city”. 

“Such is the instincts of a knight errant! Though I fear Sancho that this may also be the end of our journey for in my final battle I may fall like Beowulf did in the legend of Beowolf, and I will have passed down my chivalric ways to the next generation, my student, after reviving the ways of the knight errant in this age! 

“But you don’t have a student. And the only other knight errant we’ve seen is Toslilos and his wife, and that Sanson Carrasco, and he only became a knight errant after you humiliated him the third time you fought him.”

“Who?”

“Sanson Carrasco? The Knights of the Wood and Full Moon?”

“Those were different knights Sancho. Why they were even dedicated to different ladies. Clearly you were not paying much attention in those encounters. Or an enchanter bewitched you. Or both.”

“No, they were the same guy…”

“Then why did they follow different ladies?”

“Maybe he changed his name and lady out of shame when you defeated him the first time?”

“That is absurd Sancho. In all of the chivalric romances I have read I have never heard of such a thing as changing your name and lady upon the shame of defeat, otherwise I’d have done the same after my defeat.”

“Maybe he hasn’t read enough chivalric romances to know not to do that?”

“Nonsense Sancho, he need only have read a single chivalric romance to know that didn’t happen and not do it, I have never read of that happening and even I know not to do it.”

“Well I did say he was getting better so,”

“That’s right Sancho! He was but one of many knights who have now followed in my footsteps in the revival of knight errantry! Why on the road we have dueled some of the new knights on two separate occasions in the last fortnight alone!”

“The last what?”

“Fortnight Sancho, the last two weeks”

“The first one was a traveling cutlery salesman and the other was a bandit trying to rob you”

“Sancho you must pay more attention to the people we meet on the road! They were both knight errants I tell you. 

“Fine master, I will take your word for it. Now that we’re here what are we going to do? We missed that fighting tournament and Dulcinea del Toboso…lives in Toboso. 

“What are we going to do Sancho? Why, I am a knight errant and you are my squire! We shall seek adventure, right wrongs, and defend the innocent!

Sancho saw a poster for a group of players putting on a show in town on the wall and made a mental note to not let Don Quixote anywhere near a theater, lest he leap onto the stage and kill the actor playing the villain with his sword. Even if the actor had been Sancho’s worst enemy and the world’s worst actor, Don Quixote killing an actor would be quite bad for the sales of his book of Don Quixote’s exploits. 

They wandered around the town, giving lost travelers directions (several of which were wrong), breaking up brawls (typically by beating both parties senseless, or both parties beating them senseless, and giving glorious speeches about the virtues of knight errantry (or Don Quixote giving them at any rate, Sancho’s first one was terrible and he slept through all the others). Don Quixote bypassed an inn oft used by the commonfolk that he described as a castle in favor of one that catered primarily to the wealthy where he said he could “get to know and mingle with the average, hard working everyday worker. For I could not do that in a castle which is always filled mainly with the nobility and wealthy.” Fortunately for Sancho’s wallet the owner was so amused by Quixote that he let them stay on the house and charged people to meet with Quixote and hear his speeches on chivalry. 

The next day he and Sancho wandered the streets in the less reputable part of town when he heard a shriek from a nearby alley. Putting on the basin he called a helmet he spurred Rocinante to go for a full gallop. Rocinante, being old, set off at a slightly above average canter! He arrived at the alley where a man was holding a woman at knife point and demanding her money and jewelry. 

“Stop right there heathen! I am Don Quixote of la Mancha! And In the name of chivalry and my lady Dulcinea del Toboso I command you to stop!” the knight errant proclaimed. 

The thief looked at him for a long moment before saying “Lay off and go fight a dragon or somethin’! I’m trying to mug this woman!”  
“Greed is a trait of the dragons,” said Don Quixote pointing his lance “Therefore I declare you are a dragon who has enchanted himself to resemble a man to perform your robbery in plain sight! Onward!”

Rocinante charged, as well as an old horse like her could charge anyway, at the thief while Quixote aimed his lance. The thief sidestepped and barely avoided being impaled. The woman ran off while the two were distracted. Don Quixote stopped Rocinante and the two awkwardly turned around to charge again! Again, the thief sidestepped, but this time Rocinante tripped in a small hole in the ground, throwing Don Quixote onto the thief. Rocinante retreated to the end of the alley while Don Quixote rose to his feet. The gallant knight errant drew his sword. The thief pulled a knife. Don Quixote swung his broadsword at the thief who barely avoided getting bisected. Quixote then hit him with the flat of his sword in a backswing. The thief stumbled then punched the Knight of the Sorry face in the face. Don Quixote headbutted him and punched him in the face.   
“Haha miserable wastrel!” Don Quixote yelled, “I have few teeth left for you to knock out!

The thief slashed his knife out but it bounced off of Don Quixote’s armor. The thief had forgotten about the armor. Quixote swung his sword again (quite clumsily) but the thief managed to step back and only received a cut to the cheek. The thief ran forward while Quixote was off balance and stabbed Quixote through a chink in his armor, in the gut. 

“AHHH! YOU MAY HAVE WOUNDED ME VILE WYRM, BUT ‘TIS A FLESH WOUND! I SHALL VANQUISH YOU DRAGON!” Don Quixote roared. 

Sancho ran up behind the thief and hit him in the head with a stray piece of wood. Don Quixote stumbled forward into the stunned thief and fell on top of him. Due to the weight of Don Quixote with his armor on the thief couldn’t lift him off. Instead he was stuck with a mad hidalgo screaming threats and dares in his face for two whole minutes, until a member of the Holy Brotherhood arrived to arrest him. 

“-AND ALL YOU HAVE INJURED YOU HEAR ME? I AM A KNIGHT ERRANT AND IN THE NAME OF DULCINEA DEL TOBOSO I SHALL KILL YOU OR SEE YOU IMPRISONED FOR A THOUSAND YEARS UNTIL YOU WITHER AWAY AND YOUR EVIL IS FORGOTTE-“

“Master! The Holy Brotherhood has come to take the bandit away! You did it! You vanquished him”, Sancho Panza said. 

“So, I have vanquished the dragon, with a severe injury to my person”, Don Quixote said. “Do you have any of that healing tonic?”

“No master, I’m afraid we used it all after that affair with the tree,” Sancho replied. 

“A shame then,” Quixote said. “It seems my journey has come to an end, I have vanquished a dragon and fallen in the process, like Beowulf before me.”

“Master! Do not talk like that! You cannot die!” Sancho said. 

“I can, and I must, for it is my time now. I have passed my wisdom on to the next generation of knights and righted many wrongs.”

At this moment, a group of players came to the scene, still in costume after having finished their latest show.

“Ah! Here is a king for me to finally visit. Your majesty I have vanquished the dragon that has plagued your lands!” Don Quixote happily declared. 

The actor playing the king was confused, but decided to play along with the dying madman. “Yes, um, thank you. I mean, I am most grateful for your services to my kingdom sir knight. Allow me to knight you a knight of the realm. Um, does anyone have a sword around or…”

One of the bystanders happened to have a broom handy and gave it to the king. Holding it like a sword, and prompted by whispered ideas from the other onlookers he declared “I, king of, well, this realm hereby in the name of honor, in the charge of goodiness, dub the Sir Don Quixote, Chivalrous Knight of…this place!” Another whispered in his ear. “And the Knight of the Sorry Face!”

“I am honored your majesty, I and all knight errants who may follow me will try to uphold this oath. 

“But master, who have you ever taught?” Sancho asked, having waited for the king to finish his turn.

“…Well…let me think- oh! My sword!”

“Your sword was seized as evidence,” one of the onlookers said.

“Oh, his sword! If his majesty is willing,” Don Quixote. 

The king handed Quixote the broom. Quixote tapped Sancho’s shoulders saying, “By the code of chivalry, by the justice of the Lord, I Don Quixote, Knight of the Sorry Face and Chivalrous Knight of this Place, hereby dub thee Sir Sancho Panza, Knight of Chivalry and Erranthood. I charge you to write wrongs and always uphold the code I have taught you.”

“Master I,”

“Not your master Sancho, you are a knight not a squire”

“Thank you, Don Quixote”

“You have served me well Sancho, you have earned this right.”

A priest arrived and began giving last rites to Quixote. However Quixote also stated he was born as Alonso Quixano. After he was finished he looked at Sancho with eyes that Sancho could have sworn were clear and sane and said “I am sorry for all the trouble I may have caused you Sancho, you and many others. Still, these times riding with you have been some of the greatest of my life. Onward! To heaven!”

And so, the Knight Don Quixote passed on to the next life, the next adventure. 

Sancho Panza returned to their home village in La Mancha with Dapple and Rocinante. Don Quixote had left most of his possessions to his niece, but he left a substantial sum for Sancho. He also left a shallow pond by the river to Sancho, with a rocky outcropping in the middle. On many days Sancho would walk out to that outcropping with a chair, sit down, and declare it his island that proceeded to govern. He found it much less stressful than his last time acting as governor. The book sales continued to support him and his family for a long time. But he grew restless. 

One day a peasant woman was having trouble carrying hay from her wagon to the barn when she heard “Fear not dear maiden, for I shall assist you!” 

She looked over at the voice and asked “Who are you?” 

The man on the horse declared to her “I am Sancho Panza! Knight of Chivalry and knight errant, traveling the land vanquishing evildoers and righting wrongs for my lady Teresa!"

**Author's Note:**

> Hope it was good. If not oh well. Feel free to tell me which in the comments.


End file.
